C Y O’Connor was the State Engineer-in-Chief responsible for the design and construction of Fremantle Inner Harbour.

The statue was created by sculptor Pietro Porcelli in 1911 and is sited so that the figure faces north-east, looking towards the harbour.

The statue’s base has three beautiful bas-reliefs illustrating the range of O’Connor’s engineering achievements.

One (above) is an image of Fremantle Harbour in 1905 visited by HMS Powerful. The battle-cruiser was the flagship of the Royal Navy's Australian station at that time, having earlier been involved in the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Boer War in South Africa.

The others are of a train emerging from the Darling Scarp Tunnel, signifying O'Connor's contribution to the WA railway system, and of Mundaring Weir, the starting point of the famous Kalgoorlie pipeline which took the first reliable water supply to the parched Goldfields town.